Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Update on House Hunger Bill

The House Rules Committee scheduled a meeting at 3pm Wednesday, Sept. 18, to approve a rule for debating the nutrition bill. That would clear the way for the House to debate the nutrition bill on

Thursday.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score for the bill was released, confirming that the cut to SNAP would be $39 billion over 10 years. According to CBO

the change to work waivers would cause about 2 million individuals to lose SNAP eligibility in 2014.

this is on top of the cuts included in the committee-passed bill that would cause more than 2 million people to lose eligibility under the categorical eligibility cut.

in total, over 4 million individuals would lose eligibility under the nutrition bill.

in addition, 850,000 households would lose an average $90 per month in benefits under the Heat and Eat cut.

210,000 children would lose free school meals under the categorical eligibility cut.

at the same time, states would have fewer resources for SNAP nutrition education, which helps participants maximize nutrition on a limited food budget, at a time when participants are seeing their benefits cut.

About Me

The Presbyterian Office of Public Witness is the public policy information and advocacy office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Its task is to advocate, and help the church to advocate, the social witness perspectives and policies of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The church has a long history of applying these biblically and theologically-based insights to issues that affect the public — maintaining a public policy ministry in the nation's capital since 1946.
Reformed theology teaches that because a sovereign God is at work in all the world, the church and Christian citizens should be concerned about public policy. In addition, Presbyterian forefather John Calvin wrote, "Civil magistry is a calling not only holy and legitimate, but by far the most sacred and honorable in human life."